It turns out there are a lot of angry people on the internet

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I’ve got into using Twitter over the past couple of years, and I’ve found it’s a great place to find out about gaming news (and news in general), as well as seeing some interesting opinions on things I take for granted. Oh, and amusing videos of animals, but that goes without saying.

But I’ve also realised that I’m very much living in my own social media bubble. The people I follow tend to share the same opinions as me – generally a bit lefty, and mostly happy to poke fun at video games at the same time as sharing the joy of playing them.

But something happened this week that reminded me that the people I follow in no way reflect the internet – and society – as a whole. The below tweet popped up on my feed, and I have to say it made me cringe:

me: wow… the character designs for xenoblade 2 literally can't get any more ugly, unappealing, inconvenient, overcomplicated, or misogynistic at this pointxenoblade 2: hold my beer pic.twitter.com/9Ysfe8QscN

I love the Xenoblade games, but some aspects of the designs are a bit questionable to say the least – the ‘breast slider’ from Xenoblade Chronicles X springs to mind. With the above character, complete with ludicrous body proportions, it almost feels like the series has jumped the shark and become a sort of parody of itself. Frankly, I find it a little bit embarrassing. I’m happy to play the Xenoblade games, but I think if anyone wandered in while the above character was on the screen, I’d have a hard time justifying why I was playing something with a sort of, I don’t know, porn-parody lacy cat woman bobbling about on the screen.

Still, it seems other people have no problem justifying the lacy boob lady. In fact, they’re OFFENDED if you even THINK that you might be offended by it. I scanned through some of the comments on the above post, and I was pretty shocked by some of them, e.g.:

And:

And let’s not forget:

This is just a sample of the comments – and currently there are around 800 replies to this tweet. What really struck me is how angry the replies were to what seemed to me to be a fairly harmless comment on a pretty damn ridiculous character. I mean, it’s clear that not everyone will think that lacy boob lady is an issue, and they’re perfectly justified in thinking that. But the replies aren’t along the lines of “Respectfully I disagree with you, and here’s why”, it’s more along the lines of “HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY GAME, YOU ARE RUINING EVERYTHING”.

If Star Wars has taught us anything, it’s that fear is the root of all anger (although to be fair, I’m fairly sure George Lucas nicked that from behavioral therapy, but anyway). So what is everyone afraid of? One commenter specifically says that comments like this will “ruin everything for everyone” – but do gamers really fear that the slightest criticism of a game’s design will really “ruin” it?

Apparently so. We’re living in very strange times at the moment. Donald Trump seemingly swept to power by tapping into the feelings of “angry white men” who felt they were being disenfranchised. And Matt Lees wrote an excellent article last year on how the alt-right and GamerGate are very much connected (read it, it’s fascinating). There are genuinely men out there (and it’s overwhelmingly men) who feel threatened by any perceived attacks on their hobby of video gaming. It’s like there’s some sort of epidemic of insecurity.

Again, it feels like any sort of criticism has to be immediately shut down – along the lines of “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”. It’s indicative of a macho subculture, people who perceive themselves to be the “real gamers” – and everyone who disagrees is a “whiner”. Which is patently ridiculous. But it clearly shows that plenty of people out there feel threatened – and that same feeling of perceived threat is what far right groups around the world are capitalising on.

I feel like there’s far more to say on this, but I will have to leave it for another time. Still, I’d be fascinated to hear your thoughts in the comments, particularly your own experiences of the Angry Internet.

12 Comments

To be fair, blaming this all on one side is just encouraging that same us vs. them mentality. Just like with our political parties, the vocal internet jerks and crazies aren’t all conveniently confined to the side we happen to disagree with, as much as we’d like to believe otherwise. We’ve all seen people make crazy allegations that Mass Effect is pornography and Tomb Raider is a rape simulator and so on and so on. I’ve seen enlightened liberals rallying for children to be executed for using homophobic slurs against heterosexual peers. Both sides have their own extremist factions and both sides have their own entirely valid arguments about certain things. The problem isn’t with us or them, it’s with all of us and the illusion of power of anonymity.

What it really comes down to is why does a differing opinion matter so much to either side? Sure, random stranger “extreme gamer” may have been rude in their approach to your opinion in the first place, and that is unfortunate, but you’re playing his game right back by going on the defensive. I mean look at what’s happening here in the last example. You’re offended that someone is offended about you being offended and threatened by the fact that someone is feeling threatened about you feeling threatened, and surely someone will read this, disagree with you, and feel quadruple offended/threatened, and so on and so on, and this is how those 800 post threads happen.

When does it end and what does any of it even really matter? Your opinion realistically should have no effect on this person’s enjoyment of anything, but he’s taken it upon himself to be affected by it and that’s his ridiculous burden to bear. Let him bear it by himself instead of picking up one of your own, because honestly? Who cares what this guy, or any other person like him, says? It doesn’t matter and it only has power over you if you give it power over you.

This is what I’ve learned after years and years of arguing with people on the internet in the past. The only way to win the game is not to play. The only way for the fire to die down is to stop fueling it. Etc etc. If someone wants to have a legitimate conversation with you about a difference of opinion, great, but otherwise let them carry on being angry children in the comments sections of IGN and such, where they can wallow in their own infinite loops of irrelevant misery about everything, and just don’t worry about it.

As they say, don’t feed the trolls. I think in writing this, I just had to express my shock at how angry people can get at seemingly meaningless stuff. It genuinely surprised me – enough that I felt I had to write about it. Clearly I don’t get out and about in the Internet enough. I live s sheltered online life, it seems.

Anyway, perhaps you’re right in that I may be inadvertently perpetrating an ‘us versus them’ mentality. Maybe we all need to feel safe in our little groups.

Do you know what, I was thinking about this on my way home. I said that people are angry because they’re scared, but I think I reacted so strongly to this because I’M scared. I think reading all these angry comments ignited my worries that society is becoming more violent and divided, which is why I found it hard to just brush them off as Internet nonsense….

Yeah, the world is funny that way. Sometimes I find myself worrying about the same thing, and it’s hard not to when you look at the media and peoples behavior on the internet and it’s all screaming “EVERYONE HATES EACH OTHER AND WANTS EVERYONE ELSE TO DIE!”, but then I go outside (on the rare occasion that I do so) and oddly enough, barely anyone is actually acting like that.

Seems like the media and many politicians would rather we all be in constant fear for various reasons though (i.e. money), and go out of their way to fan the flames and prey on our fearful and competitive natures, and it’s all just a big ugly snake that’s forever eating its own tail now. Me, I’ll stick to just worrying about my own personal problems and enjoying everything else.

I think this is an area of overlap between two different ways that people misread each other.

Common in discussions of any kind of media; the idea that you have to uncritically accept something without commenting on its flaws to like it at all.
These people think that anyone who says anything at all could be improved is attacking the work. (This is directly related to the well-known phenomenon of people getting angry about a still-high-but-not-perfect review score.)
A subset of this are the ones who think any expression of distaste toward any potentially offensive or extreme content qualifies as an actual attempt to “censor” the game.
A strange lack of awareness of the fact that there is any state between “this is fine” and “outrage”.
Anyone who expresses annoyance, frustration, sick-of-this exhaustion, or even detached intellectual criticism of anything, especially anything that can be remotely connected to politics, gets responses from people who think it’s “outrage” instead.
And this is often used in harmful ways; in fact accusing people of making a bigger deal out of something than they really are it may be the most common way of attempting to silence an opposing view without doing anything to refute it.

Very true. I think Twitter does a good of stripping out all nuance as well, limiting arguments to tiny slices of outrage or support. At times it feels like the Internet does a good job of polarising all arguments to either outrage or embattled support. Thank heavens for havens of discussion like AMAP, eh?

I hate the mentality of, “Well if you don’t like it you can not buy it,” or “Then go somewhere else.” It derails from the issue, because the person doesn’t want to deal with the idea that something they like that has issues that don’t affect them could be problematic. So instead of looking at it objectively, they attack the person who’s pointing out the problem. I’m a self-proclaimed SJW, so I’ve dealt with that a lot. The criticism is valid, but the people who don’t have to deal with the issues it addresses, can ignore it and then accuse the ones who go of “ruining their fun.” Frustrating.

I love Xenoblade 2, but I’m really not a fan with the direction it went in compared to the two Xenoblade games prior. A little too much J in the JRPG for my tastes. Leave the insane amount of sexuality for Fire Emblem.

Some very interesting points very nice put & well made by all sides, especially Rich Fotch… Right on the nose sir!
As to your ‘fear’ issue Lucius, I’m also on twitter (@lordcyberius2) as a 32 yr old mentally ill (sociopath) person & find that, sadly, this isn’t just a ‘videogames’ thing.
Harry Potter, Pokemon, Judge Dredd… People are stupidly angry over all sorts of inconsequential & pointless stuff, &, as this has been goin on for over a millenium, it could very well be classed as the 1 true global pandemic of the 20th/21st/22nd centuries… Sighs
Seriously, If I had £10 for every single 1 of the many people who claim to be offended or upset by my random silliness, inane comments, occasional whinin or constant joy over my upcomin suicide plans, I wouldn’t have to Fethin make them! Grins Hugely
Hells bodkins, I (when younger & stupider) once got into a mild (but quite bitter) argument over who was the better ‘Attitude’ era wrestler: the sheer violent majesty of Stone Cold Steve Austin or the utterly nasty joy of The Rock’s machismo attitude & amazing verbal shutdowns (I’ve since realised I love both!)
I’ll simply end with 4 simple observations:
1. Always assume people are much stupider than you give them credit for (that’s if you deign to give them any credit at all!) & you’ll find you tend never to be disappointed! Grins
2. I have genuinely wished for a true way (government funded or otherwise) to connect with people as an ‘Broken’ adult, as even before becoming suicidal, my loneliness & inability to connect/understand or care about other people or their opinions is not helped by social media at all tbh! Sighs
3. Remember: the Japanese will sexualise anything & everything! (& not always in a good or clean way) given half a chance, this is not going to change any time soon, & I do not mean as a business practice, I’m 32 (just) & despite never having been to Japan, I’ve observed they, realistically, there’s only ever been 2 types of Japanese men: Karoshi-San: honorable salarymen Work To Death guys, & Shibuya-Kun: filthy, filthy, tentacles & hentai obsessed weirdos, I’m deadly serious about that. Just my opinion obvs. Never google ‘Rule 34’! Trust Lord C on this!!!
& Finally: 4. I hope & pray that most, if not all, of your internet dealings, unlike mine, are always a lot of wonder, joy & learning, than, angst, anger & confusion.. Sighs but sadly I can do nothing to fix that, &, as expressed in my above #2 statement, knowing that I’m essentially part of the problem, with no access or ability to create any genuinely useful solutions… leaves me even more severely chronically depressed & emotionally unfulfilled/lonely than I already was.
Good day to you all! Bows Politely & Walks Quietly Away 😀